July 4, 2008

Less Than Zero at Ground Zero

Another article points up the fact that something terribly wrong is happening at the site where our 21st century was born. If they build the unfortunately cloying and insipid "Freedom Tower" by Daniel Libeskind, something terribly worse will happen there yet.

So, let's do this instead:

-Rebuild the Yamasaki/Robertson structures. The challenge posed by the jihadist atavists hinges on a particular quality of fierce determination ("We love death more than you love life."), and surviving this war means matching and overmatching this degree of determination. WE HAVE TO LOVE LIFE MORE THAN THEY LOVE DEATH. Therefore our first response should have been to throw the towers back up, just as fast as the former LA Mayor Richard Riordan rebuilt the portion of the collapsed Santa Monica freeway back in the early 2000's. Alas, this opportunity has passed, but we still can rebuild the original structural feat that was the World Trade Center.

-...but we don't have to rebuild the original program of uses. Instead, program the site with a constellation of uses, especially the commercial ones that the "zero..." article is pleading for.

-Don't build one single memorial, build several... build hundreds of different sizes in a multitude of locations all over the site, up and down the towers.
-Extend the idea which organized the elevator/sky lobby system (see the second paragraph under the heading Design Innovations): "This system was inspired by the New York City Subway system, whose lines include local stations where local trains stop and express stations where all trains stop." ...and treat the towers to diverse programming vertically (Corbusier's Unit? concept) with housing and commercial programs feeding into the vertical street of each tower.